Worship Anthems Decade: 10 Years Of Amazing Praise by Various

Reviewed by Tom Lennie

Here Elevation handpick some of the finest takes from live worship events held across the UK over the past decade, stringing them together on a 32-track double volume. The chosen songs are indeed some of the best and most popular from both sides of the Atlantic and Australia in recent years; there not being any that I wasn't already familiar with. The interesting thing about the collection is that only a very few of the songs here are sung by the actual composers. Instead we've got the at times rather unlikely scenario of Graham Kendrick performing two of Matt Redman's beauties; Robin Mark singing Godfrey Birtill's "Outrageous Grace" and Kate Simmonds leading on Townend's hymnal "In Christ Alone". Noel Robinson also offers us a rather funky version of "Lord I Lift Your Name On High". All are delivered quite effectively, and it certainly makes a change from the versions most of us are used to. These are rightly termed worship anthems, and while it's true that the majority are upbeat pop rockers - there also appears some more chilled-out numbers, like "Indescribable" (Sue Rinaldi), "Hungry" (Vicky Beeching) and "Knowing You" (Mark Beswick). A fine compilation then, though hardly one that might be considered a must-have.